Celebration

ship with Noontime Concerts, a nonprofit dedicated to the presentation of free, high-quality classical music, at Old St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco as well as via livestream. Famed pianist Carl Blake will be the program director.

“Through our concerts, we hope to bring forth the emotive and unifying harmony and vibration of classical music, which fully supports Dr. King's vision of a more just and equitable world,” says Robin Wirthlin, Noontime Concerts' executive director.

For a full list of events, go to norcalmlkfoundation.org/mlkcelebration/ mlk2024.

Grizzell took the time to speak more about Dr. King and the upcoming events.

Q: WHAT INSPIRED THIS YEAR'S THEME?

A: The definition of social justice is really malleable. Somebody asks what's the definition of social justice and you'll get 15 or 20 different responses from 15 or 20 different people. We wanted to see if there was a way that we could think about social justice that could serve as an anchor for all of us. And when we thought about that and we thought about Dr. King, of course, but more than Dr. King, we thought about one of his mentors in life, Howard Thurman, who is one of the 20th-century creative theologians and the founder of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, an interracial, interfaith community. It used to be said that the most segregated hour in the United States is Sunday morning. Thurman wanted to challenge that, and he did. The church still exists today. With social justice, he thought about the human experience and that we as human beings are a part of nature. And the whole idea of nature, the way that nature survives, the way that nature feeds itself is through interacting with other parts of nature. And the human experience is the same way. We need to connect with each other to be able to live. … If I can see myself in you and you can see yourself in me, we can find a way to build ourselves together. That's the message from Dr. King when he was at Occidental College. That was his final note to the students. That to me is what social justice is.

Q: YOU BECAME EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE FOUNDATION IN 2010. WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO TAKE THE POSITION?

A: Part of it personally is the familial things, my family's, like many families like mine, forebears were raised in the Southern United States in the antebellum period. I'm a child of ministers from generations back, who had a connection with the movement. Me, personally, I got involved with this movement in its predecessor's day. The foundation goes back to 1985 when the late Coretta Scott King went around the country to form organizations that would organize the birthday celebrations for the new holiday that was to take effect in January, the third Monday in January starting in 1986 under federal legislation, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. She partnered with the Rev. Cecil Williams in founding the organization, the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Committee. I was on that executive committee for 11 or 12 years. When Cecil decided to resign, he asked to have someone from the renewed leadership to come up. I didn't think it was going to be a life mission, but I thought it was a worthy one.

Q: YOU CO-FOUNDED THE KING AND FAITH SERIES. HOW'D THAT START?

A: In 2014, my good friend and mentor, the late James Anthony Noel, discussed with me the possibility of working together on something that had to do with Martin Luther King during our King holiday. I invited him to an event we had during one of our MLK sessions. He was very impressed. So, we set up an event with a couple theologians in San Francisco at the Museum of the African Diaspora to have a discussion. That led to the creation of an idea that we had to create this King and Faith series. The series was born in 2015. We restructured it in a way to where we can bring in scholars and also the public together to engage in conversation and celebration and honoring the legacy of King through the faith side. His dad was a minister. He grew up in a church-going home, like many African American homes of the day. He grew up in that type of environment. But he wasn't expected nor expecting to be at the forefront of a social movement, that came as a specific call for him to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott. And he was vibrant. He was new and they wanted him to grab this thing by the horns. The person who had an idea about the impact of what Rosa Parks had done on that bus in Montgomery by not moving from her seat was Coretta Scott King. And she introduced Dr. King to Bayard Rustin. A lot more needs to be talked about her impact. We keep that at the forefront whenever we talk about Dr. King because Coretta Scott King was central in this.

Q: YOU ALSO STARTED THE BLACK & BROWN COMIX ARTS FESTIVAL. WERE YOU SOMEONE WHO WAS INTERESTED IN COMIC BOOKS?

A: When I was about 10, I can remember going down to the corner store. My favorite superhero was Thor. There's something about the hammer, something about what he's wearing. My wonderful wife, Colette, her friend John Jennings was one of the leading comic book scholars and leading artists in the space. But that wasn't my life. Then, she introduced me to John. We were talking, and he said, “Look, man, can we think about doing some sort of event around Black comic books?” I was like that's great. One thing led to another. We launched the Black & Brown Comix Arts Festival and USA Today selected it as one of the 10 best art festivals in the United States. We were like, are you kidding? We're just absolutely overjoyed to be able to pair this with the King holiday because Dr. King was a “Star Trek” fan.